Archive of ‘Surfie’ category

Jimmy Junk Heart (aka Jimmy Hanson) is a young up and coming Melbournite who is showing a real penchant for creating quality surf rock.

Debut track, ‘Loose Blonde Haired Girl’, is a raw jangly surf rock tune that has you bouncing along from the outset,with its super catchy guitar driven sound just melting the ears perfectly. Reminding me a little of Gung Ho, Velociraptor, or even Dune Rats, Jimmy Junk Heart has shown with ‘Loose Blonde Haired Girl’ that he has the pedigree to make it with the best.

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Lately Brisbane seems to be the hub of the Australian indie rock scene as they have been pumping out cool bands and sick tunes, of which the Dune Rats are yet another.

The Dune Rats released two EPs last year, their debut ‘Sexy Beach’ in February and ‘Social Atoms’ in September, making 2011 a pretty successful year for the twosome.

Their song ‘Pogo’ off ‘Social Atoms’, has been played on Triple J lately, and is an absolute cracker of an indie surf-rock tune, and what really got my attention towards the band. It has the uptempo driving beats, reverb soaked guitars, and some pretty chilled singing on the vocals. The song reminds me of a cross between UK band The Wombats, with the back up woo-hoo refrains, and the retro sound of early Weezer. Its just a super catchy track, that like all good music leaves you bopping along.

Make sure you check out their EPs, in particular ‘Social Atoms’ which showcases a number of sounds. There is a bit of grunge in ‘On Our Own’, the retro rock in ‘Pogo’ and ‘Social Atoms’ before finishing off with ‘F(r)iends which has some cool refrains and backups.

Overall Dune Rats are quite a cool little band, and I am looking forward for the chance to catch them live, and hear their retro sound first hand.

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Sydney two piece ‘Palms’ have not yet been together for a year, but are no strangers to the Aussie music scene with both members Tom Wallace and Alexander Grigg having formally been in Sydney band ‘Red Riders’ which broke up during the 2011 winter.

Whilst the rest of the band went on to other things, Wallace and Grigg kick started new project ‘Palms’ because they realised they liked making music too much to stop, which is a pretty good reason to be honest. Whilst ‘Red Riders’ music was a constant barrage of sound with off-kilter rhythms, waning guitars and distortion style bass, ‘Palms’ is a little less intense and more in the surf-rock category with bands such as Wavves.

Their first released song, ‘Summer is Done With Us’ is the ultimate anti-summer song, best characterised by the lyrics “Lets go where it (summer) can’t follow us”. The track has a real 60s feel with the waning guitars, step-laddering keyboards and energetic drumming, and contains more instruments than the members can play, which suggests that Tom and Al may have some recruiting to do. The vocals are somewhat reserved and mix well with the instrumentation, with the track swapping between times of music and then vocal domination. Its a pretty spritely and upbeat track, and luckily can be downloaded for free here at Palms unearthed page.

Given that ‘Palms’ love making music, I doubt it will be too long before a demo tape, first official single, or EP is released. Until then I’m going to encourage the arrival of winter by listening to ‘Summer is Done with Us’.